


i feel it coming on

by gdgdbaby



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Rough Sex, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-07 16:42:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14085195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gdgdbaby/pseuds/gdgdbaby
Summary: Life isn't a movie, Ira thinks, but he doesn't say it out loud. Some things hit a little too close to home, even for him.





	i feel it coming on

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleMousling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMousling/gifts).



> hi molly!!! i hope you enjoy this ira/louis story as much as i enjoyed writing it for you. ♥
> 
> title from loud by mustard snorkel. content warning for sex while under the influence, though both parties are enthusiastically consenting. several podcast episodes (keep it and otherwise) have come out since the writing of this story that mildly jossed things, but i tried to wrangle in as many up-to-date #canon details as possible! thanks to radialarch and insunshine for looking this over; any remaining mistakes and discrepancies are mine.

"It's not that I'm not a relationship person," Louis declares.

Kara immediately rolls her eyes and reaches over Ira to snatch another tortilla chip from the basket on the table. "Oh, boy," she says, and Ira has to muffle a laugh in his hand as her gaze cuts toward him, dripping with long-suffering commiseration. "Here we go again."

"It's not!" Louis picks up his own chip and stabs it insistently into the queso, as if to punctuate the proclamation. "I just haven't, you know. Found the one." His voice peters out glumly at the end, and his perfect teeth crunch around the chip.

"The one," Ira says, skeptical. "You mean like—the one who keeps you from wanting to hook up with other people?"

"Louis," Kara says, with the air of someone trying to let someone else down gently, "if you're trying to find a person with the same depth of Oscar knowledge as you, then I have some bad news."

"Honey," Louis says, full of disdain. "No one has the same depth of Oscar knowledge as me."

"That much is clear," Kara says. She takes a long sip of her drink, expression contemplative. "Did you get dumped? Is that why we're talking about this?"

Louis sends her a scathing look. "I did the dumping, thank you."

"You're always doing the dumping," Ira points out. He lifts a forkful of his street corn and brandishes it over the table at large. "Have you considered that maybe the problem is you?"

Whatever Louis opens his mouth to say is lost in the next moment, because Chris, their hot Asian server, has swung by to drop off their tacos. It's Saturday in Austin, lunch before they record the live show, and Torchy's is packed with conference attendees. As Ira watches, Louis's eyes follow the line of Chris's ass with interest as he walks away. Typical. Ira wouldn't be surprised if Louis pulled his phone out and started tapping through Grindr in the middle of the lunch rush.

For all his OkCupid shit-talking, Louis is one of the only people Ira knows that uses online hookup apps for actual dates. Maybe that's why it didn't work out with—what was his name again? Rob? Ryan? It definitely started with an R, and he definitely materialized out of the ether from one of Louis's apps, fully formed, like an electronic Birth of Venus. Ira tries to make a point of not being too judgmental of his friends' significant others, but sometimes you just have to know your audience. Sometimes the well-lit dick pic on Grindr is exactly what you get; no more, no less. Square pegs don't fit in round holes.

Kara swirls another chip in the queso and clears her throat. "How do you even know if you've found _the one_ , anyway? Like, what does that even mean?"

"If you have to ask," Louis says, letting the sentence trail off, and cackles when Kara hits his arm. "I don't know. It's supposed to just—you're supposed to click, right? You just know." _Life isn't a movie_ , Ira thinks, but he doesn't say it out loud. Some things hit a little too close to home, even for him.

"Uh huh," Kara says, unconvinced. "Why are you so obsessed with the idea of settling down all of a sudden, anyway?"

"I don't want to settle," Louis protests. "It's not about _settling_. It's about finding someone who wants the same things out of a relationship that I do." He shrugs, the delicate lift of a shoulder. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm beginning to think it's not even worth the effort."

Ira raises his eyebrows. "That's why no-strings-attached sex is way more efficient than whatever it is you keep trying to do."

Louis snorts. "Not everyone can fuck their way through the entire LA gay scene twice over and live to tell the tale. Some people are more _discerning_."

"Are you calling me a slut?" Ira says, pressing a hand to his chest in mock offense.

Kara starts laughing. "The shoe fits, babe. You gotta admit."

"Et tu, Brute? Your cohost gigs are both cancelled. I'm doing the live show by myself."

"It's Women's History Month! You can't fire me, Ira, that's literally illegal."

"Well, I guess I'm a criminal now," Ira says, and bends his head down to take a bite of one of his tacos, barbacoa juice running down toward his wrist before he licks his hand clean. Fuck. This shit is delicious. Texas has a lion's share of its own issues, but never let it be said that the people down here don't know how to make some damn tacos. "I'm just saying, Louis," he continues after he swallows, turning deliberately away from Kara. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her send him a rude gesture before digging into her own food. "You're out in the wild west for a long weekend. You've got a nice swanky hotel room at the downtown Hilton. Take advantage of your recent singlehood."

The corner of Louis's mouth jumps. "Save a horse, ride a cowboy?"

"Damn straight," Ira says.

Chris walks past their table again, balancing five baskets of tacos and a bowl of Mexican rice in his beefy arms. "Hmm," Louis says, tapping a finger against his mouth. "Maybe I will."

 

 

Recording the show goes well that afternoon, even though Louis keeps sending him fake wounded looks after the rigged Oscar game and making Ira laugh when he shouldn't be. After dinner, Shake Shack at Kara's behest, they spin off toward diverging evening plans, the girls heading toward Sixth Street with Rheeq and Julian while Ira considers several queerer options for a stiff drink and a good time.

"Christian says Oilcan Harry's is hopping," Louis says, waving his phone, wearing a sly grin.

It's not Ira's first South By Southwest, and certainly far from his first time in the city, but it _is_ his first on the other side of the fence, as a panelist and presenter. Last year, after attending a bunch of film screenings the first weekend, he felt free to indulge in anything and everything Austin's nightlife had to offer. He'd checked into so many bars on Fourth Street that for weeks after, his Yelp location had autofilled to the wrong city, despite his best efforts to relocate to Los Angeles again.

So it'd been a good time—great, even. Lots of drag shows and bar-hopping and confetti and body glitter involved. This year feels different, though, never mind that all his responsibilities are technically over with. If Ira felt more like self-reflecting on a Saturday night, he could probably pinpoint exactly why.

"Come on," Louis says, as if sensing his hesitation. "What was it you said at lunch? _Take advantage_?"

Ira makes a face. There's nothing he hates more than being called a hypocrite. Hoisted by his own petard, as Jon Lovett would say. "Fuck it," he says, and refuses to feel any type of way when Louis's face lights up. "Let's go."

It's a rowdy night to be out on the town, and so many SoCal transplants are in Austin for the weekend that Ira feels like he sees someone he recognizes every five minutes. He dances a little, drinks a lot, grinds dirty to the latest Cardi B remix that blares over the speakers. Every place they stop at is packed with people, heat and sound; at the third club, Ira puts up a couple of Instagram stories and checks some other folks' in the bathroom, the bass on his phone layered underneath the bass shaking through the walls.

By twenty past midnight, he's feeling warm and buzzed and loose. He's long since lost count of the number of tequila shots they've done. Halfway through their drinks at Highland, two clubs ago, Louis had slunk off with some hunk at the bar, but their group has since reacquired Kara and Brittany, somehow—"Gays just know how to do it better, huh?" Ira says as they slide into their booth. He grins when Kara tosses her head back and laughs.

"When you're right, you're right," she says, peering past him. "You lost Louis?"

Ira raises his eyebrows delicately. "I think he took my advice."

"The man works fast," she says, impressed.

Ira shrugs and says, "He knows what he wants," before draining the rest of his margarita.

He could probably also take his own advice and pick up tonight—he made out briefly with a skinny guy with long hair wearing way too much eyeliner at the last bar, and could find someone else just as easily here—but truthfully, he really hasn't slept around too much since the beginning of the year. Just hasn't been feeling it.

There's a correlation there, too, but he's done a great job not thinking about it so far, and Christian's back at their table with garishly neon drinks for all of them, so. There's really no point in dwelling on it.

 

 

It's nearly two in the morning by the time they make it back to the Hilton, tipsy and laughing. Brittany's on the fourth floor, but he and Kara are in the corner of the sixth, right next door to Louis, all in a row. "I hope they aren't still fucking," Ira says as they take the elevator up. "I'm pretty sure we share a wall."

"You're awful," Kara says, but the corner of her mouth is still twitching when they step off onto the sixth floor.

They're almost to the end of the hall when the door to Louis's room swings open. _Movie timing_ , Ira thinks, nearly bumping into Kara as she freezes in place.

"I had a nice time," he hears Louis say, but there's something flat about his voice. Ira doesn't recognize the guy that emerges from within, but he does give them a brief deer-in-the-headlights look before booking it to the elevators.

Kara clears her throat. There's a resounding silence from Louis's room, but the door doesn't swing back shut.

"So," Ira says, breaking through the tension. "Didn't work out?"

"Ugh," Louis says, and he's wearing a fluffy white bathrobe when he steps out, hair mussed, feet bare. He shuts the door to his room and plops right down on the cushy hotel carpet, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Kara tosses Ira a look, like, _Can your drunk ass handle this on your own?_ before deciding that's a definite no and leaning back against the opposite wall, hands sliding into the pockets of her Adidas hoodie. "That bad, huh."

"He came, I sighed, nothing was conquered. I've had _Grindr_ dates that were more satisfying." Ira slides down next to him, and Kara crosses her legs beneath her too, the three of them sitting on the floor out in the open like they're in the fucking Breakfast Club or something. "I don't know how you do it," Louis continues, glancing in Ira's direction. "I keep forgetting I'm actually too Type A for this shit."

"The lifestyle isn't for everybody," Ira says, shrugging. "Only the bold survive."

"Fuck off," he says, but there's no heat to it. "That's enough about my lackluster night. How were yours?"

Kara starts recounting the details of some bozo they met at the first bar they went to, and the drastic improvement when they decided to move their evening two blocks south. Louis laughs. "Gays just do it better," he says, tossing his head.

"That's what I said!" Ira says, and Louis grins at him, bangs falling into his eyes for a moment before he flicks them away with a sweep of his fingers. The last time Ira saw his hair in such disarray was a week ago, after the Oscar watch party Ira hosted at his apartment. Louis stayed late to help him clean up the empty beer bottles and sandwich trays, even though there were almost certainly much better after-parties both of them could be attending. "Why are you still here and not partying it up with Ryan?" Ira asked, and maybe he'd already known, even then, that it wasn't going to work out between Louis and his latest boyfriend.

"You Wisconsinites know all about midwestern nice," Louis said by way of explanation, meticulously sweeping stale popcorn out from underneath the coffee table. All the product in his hair had been rubbed out over the course of the evening, and it flopped over in his crinkling eyes when he looked up to smile. Ira felt a telltale tug in his stomach, the urge to reach out and smooth it away—to pull Louis in by the back of his neck and touch every part of him there was to touch—and managed to run through all the reasons that would be a terrible idea, personally and professionally, so he wouldn't give into the impulse.

God. He told himself he wasn't going to think about it, and here he is anyway.

"Anyway," Kara's saying presently, as Ira zones back into the conversation. "I gotta go to sleep, y'all." She overbalances a little when she picks herself up, and Ira reaches out to steady her. "Whew. Thanks. Julian's in a panel tomorrow that I have to be at. Who schedules this shit at eight on a Sunday morning?"

"Take a couple of Advil before bed, honey," Louis calls after her. "You'll thank me later."

Ira takes a deep breath and lets it out when she's gone. He's halfway to sobering back up at this point, that maudlin in-between feeling that means he should probably crash before he does something stupid. "For what it's worth," he says carefully, "I really am sorry it didn't work out. With Ryan or with—whoever that guy was, tonight."

Louis grimaces. "Not your fault," he says, letting his head tip back against the wall. "It's just frustrating, you know? I meet interesting people I like all the time, but there's always something that doesn't fit right." He snorts, shaking his head. "It would be a lot easier to deal with if I were at least getting good sex out of it."

Ira's mouth goes dry. "What?"

Louis flourishes a hand down his body and sighs. "You see this? Like—I know I look like the wind could knock me over if it blew the wrong way, but a solid ninety percent of the guys I've tried taking home recently act like they're afraid I'm going to break in half if they so much as shove me into the headboard. I mean, come _on_. What's a guy gotta do to get knocked around a little?"

"Oh." Ira tries to swallow, and his throat clicks. It's not like he didn't know about Louis's— _finer tastes_ , so to speak, but he's been trying very hard not to think about them, lately. "I could," he blurts out before he can stop himself, wincing even as he says it. "I could help you with that."

Next to him, Louis goes very still.

"Sorry," Ira says, scrambling to his knees, "that was—forget I said anything—" but then there's a slim hand fitted around his wrist, and Louis is peering up at him, expression focused and intense, like he's trying to puzzle out a trivia question.

Classically, Ira's problem, when he's allowed himself to characterize it as such, has been that once the chase is over, it feels like there's nothing left to discover. He gets bored too easily; that's why short-form journalism has been good for him over the years. Most days, all he has to do is watch a movie or mainline a TV show and pump out a couple of takes for whichever publication is asking for them on a particular day. Even the longer profiles he's done never need more than a couple weeks of work at most, and then he's on to the next one.

So too with boyfriends; Ira can count on one hand the number of relationships he's had as an adult that have made it past the three month mark, let alone a year. Sometimes he looks at Louis, though, and thinks that maybe he's getting soft in his old age, or something. He thinks about the rapidfire pace of Louis's diction, every snap of his fingers and roll of his eyes, the infuriating way he has a damn fun fact for everything Ira says, Oscar-related or otherwise, and—some time over the last five months of working together, over the past three years of running in the same circles, a voice in the back of his mind saw Louis and decided, imperious and sure: _that one_.

The podcast's going to make it past the three month mark, soon. Ira hasn't sunk that ship yet. If that means personal growth, then maybe, maybe he can learn to have his cake and eat it, too.

Louis is still looking up at him, brows scrunched together. His fingers dig a little deeper, nails biting into Ira's skin. "If this is a pity offer, I swear to God, Ira," he says slowly, and Ira shakes his head so fast that his vision spins.

"It's not pity." His voice comes out rougher than he intended, and Louis's eyes go wide. Ira's gaze drops down to follow the tip of Louis's tongue as it swipes across his lower lip. "Trust me, Louis."

"Okay," he says, and exhales all in a rush. Ira twists his arm so that he's one holding onto Louis's wrist, now, and feels Louis flex it delicately in his grip. Testing the fences.

"Okay, what?"

"This is a terrible idea," Louis murmurs, and Ira's stomach drops for one soul-crushing moment, but then Louis reaches out to tangle his free hand in the collar of Ira's shirt and pulls him in.

His back was already against the wall, and they're both in a weird half-crouch, so the angle's all wrong for it, but Ira leans in as close as he can, anyway, slides his tongue past the seam of Louis's lips and up against the roof of his mouth. Louis still tastes a bit like whatever he'd been drinking last, something sharp and tangy, and he lets out an audible groan when Ira's grip around his wrist goes tighter.

"Let's not do this in the hallway," Ira mumbles, and hauls them up together in one smooth motion. Jesus, Louis really is as light as a cloud.

"Right," Louis says, sounding breathless already, and plucks his keycard out of the pocket in his bathrobe. It takes him three tries to shove it properly into the slot. Ira spares a moment to feel gratified about messing Louis up that much, leaps forward to the idea of taking him apart, and feels his dick stir in his jeans.

 _Fucking calm down_ , he thinks, but he's pretty sure that's a lost cause at this point.

The door clicks shut behind them, and then they're kissing again, Louis's hands balanced on Ira's shoulders as Ira walks him back. Dimly, in the back of his mind, he remembers Louis saying, _What's a guy gotta do to get knocked around a little?_ He slides his hands around to lift Louis up, palms against his ass under the bathrobe, steps stuttering a little as Louis hooks his legs around Ira's waist in one fluid motion. It's a miracle Ira doesn't trip over his own damn feet, and they hit the far wall with a dull thud, breath whooshing out of Louis's mouth.

"Oh, fuck," Ira mumbles, and Louis says, "No, it's fine—that's fucking perfect," rolling his hips up so Ira can feel the growing evidence of his arousal trapped between their bodies. Ira thinks _oh_ and _okay_ and _shit, he wasn't kidding_ , feeling kind of dizzy.

Ira holds Louis up against the wall for a long moment, takes his time with Louis's mouth, biting at his lower lip until Louis is squirming in his arms, panting against his mouth. Ira wants to savor this, in case it's—just a bad decision on a work trip that never happens again, even if they never talk about it after tonight.

He moves his fingers beneath the bathrobe toward Louis's hole, and—he's already prepped, of course he is, still wet from the last guy. Something about that makes Ira lean into him even more, move his lips down to suck a dark, bruising mark into the pale column of Louis's neck as he slides the tip of one finger inside him.

Louis chokes out a laugh. He sounds punch drunk when he says, "Fuck yes," voice high and slurred. "I didn't think—Jesus—I didn't think you were interested, you know."

Ira pulls back, blinking. It takes a minute for his eyes to focus in the dimness of the room. "What?"

He can make out the gleam of Louis's teeth in the dark, the curve of his smile. "Even before we became friends, I'd heard stories about how much you got around, so I thought—if he actually wanted to, he would've said something already. If he wanted to, I would know about it."

Ira huffs, shaking his head. "I was trying really hard to be professional," he says, because it seems like the safest thing to say.

"So much for that," Louis says, and grinds down against Ira's finger. "Come on, then. Give me something to talk about."

Ira doesn't need to be told twice. Even if he might not be able to give Louis everything he wants, even if he can't be a—a good boyfriend, even if he can't be _the one_ —Ira can give him this. He knows how to do this. He's good at it.

Louis lets out a little squeak as Ira pushes off the wall and walks them toward the bed. "Take the top sheet off," Louis says, and Ira makes an affirmative noise against the curve of his neck, moves down to strip the bed one-handed before depositing Louis on the mattress.

He looks good like this, pink and rumpled, hair in complete disarray. Ira's been trying to stop himself from imagining it at length for his own sanity, but they're here now. He doesn't have to imagine anymore—he gets to watch Louis shimmy out of the confines of his bathrobe as he shucks his own clothing, puts his glasses on the bedside table. Gets to take in the smattering of hair across Louis's chest, the sheen of sweat gathered on his abdomen, the flex of his thighs as he bends his knees. Gets to watch him stretch out like a cat, sure and satisfied, gaze sweeping up and down as Ira jacks himself a couple of times before knee-walking onto the bed.

"So?" Louis says, cocking his head, mouth tilted up into a smirk. It's not quite a come hither glance, but it's certainly a challenge. "Don't chicken out on me now."

"God, you're annoying," Ira says automatically, and Louis is laughing as he leans up to meet Ira's mouth, the slant of his body. That feels right.

They kiss for long enough that Ira's breath feels caught in his ribcage, until Louis's lips are slick and red and puffy. He reaches down to palm Louis's dick roughly. There's still a bottle of lube out on the nightstand, and Ira leans over to grab it and fish a condom out of his wallet.

"I'm not going to," he starts, and hisses a little as he rolls the condom on. Louis watches, rapt, as Ira pours a bit of lube into his palm and slicks himself up. "I'm not going to do you the disservice of asking if it hurts every two seconds, but you'll have to tell me if something feels off." He smiles, can't help it. "What am I saying? Since when have you ever been tight-lipped about anything in your life?"

"Duly noted, but I can take it," Louis says, as serious as Ira's ever seen him. "Promise." Ira almost swallows his own damn tongue as Louis spreads his legs and pulls his own ass cheeks apart. He's smirking again, because of course he is. "Get over here already."

"Greedy," Ira says, but he goes, arms landing on either side of Louis's head, caging him in. Ira probably shouldn't be this pleased about how Louis's chin looks scratched up from beard burn, how the mark on his neck is probably going to be visible for days, but he can't help it. He feels reckless with desire, so hard that it's going to be a battle to keep from coming too soon.

They both groan when Ira reaches down to line himself up and push in, slow and steady. Louis has already been fucked once tonight, but he's still hot, tight, clenching around Ira hard enough to make him gasp. "That's it," Louis says, eyes half-lidded, mouth falling open as Ira rolls his hips, nudging deeper. "Fuck, yes. Holy shit, you're big. Ira—God."

"I get that a lot," Ira says, too breathy. He groans again when Louis bends so he can hook his skinny calves over Ira's shoulders, folding himself almost all the way in half. "Show-off."

"You know me," Louis says, mouth tilting upward, reaching out so he can dangle his arms around Ira's neck. "Are you going to move or not?"

"Getting to it," Ira says, and pulls out almost all the way before slamming back into Louis again, hard enough to rock the headboard against the wall.

Louis honest-to-God yells, face half-turning into the pillow beneath his head. He bucks up against Ira at the next thrust, meeting him with everything he's got, and then it's easy to fall into a rhythm. Ira knows how to do this—he's done it before, time and time again—and Louis takes it so fucking beautifully, opening up beneath him, loud and lovely.

"Fuck," he says, pushing all his weight into it. He can barely track what Louis is saying anymore, the litany of filth falling from his mouth. He wants Louis to yell again, but more than that—he wants to fuck Louis so hard that he doesn't even have the capacity to make any more noise, wants to slide in so deep that Louis wouldn't be able to string two words together, let alone two Oscar winners from 1979.

Ira readjusts them so that Louis's legs are wrapped around his waist, so he can press them flush together, so he can slide his hands down to grip Louis's hips hard enough to bruise and press his face down against Louis's neck, suck another mark into his soft skin. He keeps moving his hips, the bedframe rattling beneath them, sheets bunching. Pleasure coils tight in his stomach, but Ira's not ready to stop yet. He's not ready to come. He sets his teeth against the feeling and keeps pushing in, the slick sound of their bodies slapping against each other over-loud in the room.

He feels Louis squirming beneath him, breath hot and ragged against the shell of Ira's ear, skin damp. "Can you—baby, can you come like this?" Ira gasps, and Louis makes a high keening noise, mouth brushing the side of his face.

"Yeah, just," he murmurs, and his whole body is trembling now, flushed, gorgeous. He works a hand between them, tugs at his dick once, twice, and then he's coming, arching off the bed, making a mess between them.

Ira's hips stutter, and Louis shakes his head even as he's still riding through the high of his orgasm. "Keep—fuck, don't pull out, don't stop, keep going," he mumbles, legs still locked around Ira's waist, and the command shoots through him like a bolt of electricity. Louis tugs so Ira's hand is braced against the delicate line of his collarbone, thumb pressed just south of his windpipe, and that's—fuck, that's it. He feels the telltale tightness roll up his thighs, and a moment later, he comes, every other sound in the room fuzzing out into white noise.

He's collapsed on top of Louis when he comes back into himself. They're stuck together by sweat and jizz, and it should be gross, but Louis doesn't seem like he's ready to move. Ira tries to pull out, at least, but Louis makes a soft noise of dissent, so he stays in for another long minute. They catch their breath together.

"How," Ira says eventually, and has to clear his throat. "How was that?"

"Much better than the other guy," Louis says, voice punched out.

"Stunning endorsement," Ira says drowsily, rolling them both onto their sides. The last thing he hears before he falls asleep is Louis's wheezing laugh ruffling past his temple.

 

 

Ira wakes up to the sun peeking through the blackout curtains and an enormous fucking headache, and it takes him a minute to realize why the hell he feels so sticky.

He and Louis must've moved in the night, because Ira's no longer tucked inside him. He can feel Louis's elbow poking him in the stomach, though, and he can't help groaning when he shifts to fling an arm over his face.

"You know you're a snorer?" Louis says, voice floating over from the other side of the bed.

Ira shuts his eyes against the light. It helps a little with the headache, but not by much. "I am not," he croaks.

"Okay," Louis says, a touch more amused. "You're not, but you _are_ a goddamn furnace."

"Guilty as charged," Ira says. The bed dips, and when Ira opens his eyes again, turns his head, Louis is sitting up at the edge, the slope of his naked back half in shadow. Ira wants to reach out and touch him, but he can't tell if he's allowed. It's a harder impulse to control now that he's seen what he's seen. Knows what he knows.

"I'm going to take a shower," Louis says, and his voice is perfectly modulated. Perfectly careful. Ira hates that he can't see his face. "This was fun. Thanks for—helping me out, last night. I appreciate it."

"Louis," Ira tries, but he shakes his head.

"I know you're not a relationship guy. Hell, honey, I know I haven't been great at trying to be a relationship guy, either, so we don't have to—pretend that it was anything more than it was." His whole body moves when he exhales.

"No, I'm not a relationship guy," Ira says slowly, and he doesn't miss the way Louis flinches. "Not usually, anyway." In for a penny, right? "I don't know if I'm going to be any good at this, but I don't, uh. Want this to be just a one-time thing."

Louis turns around at that, head tucked over his shoulder, which is something. Ira shifts, pinned, as Louis's discerning gaze alights on him, his eyebrows raised high.

Ira shrugs, trying to radiate the casual nature of his proposal, even though technically, he supposes it's as far from casual as he's gotten in at least a year. It's probably way too early and he's way too hungover to be having this conversation, but he wants to keep Louis's eyes on him, and that necessitates continuing to talk, even if it means jumping headfirst into the deep end of the pool. "I just—I've never been good at relationships. I'm picky, I'm flighty, I get bored easily. And I was okay with that, before, but I don't want _this_ to be something I get bored with, because I think—I think you're great. You're something else, Louis. You deserve better than that."

"Well," Louis says. He pauses, and that look crosses his face again, the one where he's puzzling things out, before his brow smooths over. "First of all, I love being told I'm exceptional." He grins when Ira snorts.

"Don't get used to it."

"Too late," he says. "Secondly," and his voice goes serious here, broadens out, "boredom is a choice, honey." He fiddles restlessly with the edge of the comforter. "I mean, have you met me? I can barely focus on one thing at a time, that's why I stick all this trivia in my head to cope." He shrugs. "Keeping things interesting takes work. Sometimes that means phenomenal sex with your partner—"

"Phenomenal, huh?"

"—and other times it means, I don't know, candlelight and roses and a Sex and the City marathon. Sometimes it even means sleeping with other people." Something about that makes warmth curl in the pit of Ira's stomach. _It's not about settling_ , Louis said at lunch, jabbing a chip in the air to make his point. _It's about finding someone who wants the same things._ "Relationships take work, but it's work that I'm willing to put in. Are you?"

Is he? He can't know for sure, but he wants to know, and he thinks, maybe, that's a step in the right direction. "Only one way to find out," Ira says, lifting his chin, and some of the tension in Louis's shoulders bleeds out. He smiles, and Ira smiles back, helpless to resist. God, he's fucked.

"We'll work on it," Louis says, and stands, wobbling a little. "First, I really need a fucking shower." He tilts his head, smile turning sharp and intent. "Wanna join me?"

 

 

Kara's loading up at the breakfast buffet in the hotel restaurant when they finally make it downstairs. "I thought you were going to Julian's panel," Ira says, grabbing a plate and sliding a few pieces of bacon onto it.

"Couldn't sleep well last night, so I decided to skip it," Kara says blandly. "Louis and I share a wall too, you know." Louis turns pink. Ira knows how far down the flush goes now, which is a revelation. He's not going to be ashamed about that.

"Kara," Ira tries, and she just shakes her head.

"As long as y'all aren't insufferable about it, I'm good."

"I knew I picked the right cohosts," he says with genuine feeling, and Kara rolls her eyes, but she's still smiling when she reaches over to grab the tongs for the sausage, so she can't be too mad.

"So," she says, looking over Ira's shoulder at Louis. "Think he's the one?"

Louis makes a big show of thinking about it, hemming and hawing, and Ira presses a fluttering hand to his chest. "Too early to say," he says finally. "But I don't know. I have a good feeling."

"Me too," Ira says, and is pleased to find he believes it.


End file.
